Would you tell anybody if you had a fountain of youth in your backyard? Patriarch of the Tuck family, Angus, (William Hurt of "Changing Lanes") says "No."Disney's new movie, "Tuck Everlasting," is based on the book of the same name by Natalie Babbit. The film takes place in the early 1900s and centers on the Tuck family, who have a fountain in their backyard which allows the person who drinks from it to live forever. The family keeps the fountain a secret, until a young girl, Winnie Foster (Alexis Bledel of TV's "Gilmore Girls") stumbles into their lives.

After fighting with her parents (Amy Irving of "Traffic" and Victor Garber of "Legally Blonde"), Winnie runs off into the woods where she meets Jesse (Jonathan Jackson of "Insomnia"), Tuck's youngest son. She tries to take a sip from the spring that Jesse is drinking from. Jesse chases her away and she is caught by Miles Tuck (Scott Bairstow of "The Postman"), Jesse's older brother, and brought to the Tuck's house.

After Winnie has built a friendship with the Tuck family, a love story unfolds between her and Jesse. He takes it upon himself to free Winnie from the confines of her stiff, upper-class parents, and realize the joy and happiness of living life to the fullest. Discovering the freedom of "the other side of the fence," Winnie quickly adopts to this new lifestyle and loses track of time.

In her new life, Winnie encounters many firsts. As she and Jesse spend more and more time together, a close bond begins to form, which climaxes with the long-expected kiss. The depth of their bond also forces Winnie to make one of the hardest decisions of her short life - to drink or not to drink from the fountain of youth?

Underlying the love story is an element of evil, represented by the man in the yellow suit (Ben Kingsley of "Sexy Beast"). He is overcome by greed and by an obsessive desire to drink from the fountain of youth and live forever that borders on the insane. The man in the yellow suit gives the otherwise sweet movie a note of discord. How he figures into the movie, however, is not clear. The Tucks have not told anyone about the power of the spring to make its drinkers immortal, yet he seems to know everything. Interesting.

The movie is very well cast, with Hurt playing a great Angus Tuck. As his character unfolds, the audience gets a true insight into his way of thinking about his family. The audience gets the sense that this is someone who has truly seen it all and understands what he is talking about, especially in the ways of life and death.

Sissy Spacek ("In the Bedroom") was perfectly cast, playing the part of Mae Tuck, the headstrong and independent matriarch of the Tuck family.

The charm of the Jackson-Bledel combination gives the movie a wonderful feeling of rightness, while Bairstow adds just the right amount of internal family problems to make the Tuck family seem realistic.

Kingsley, who has a habit of playing the odd man out, portrays the man in the yellow suit as a man lacking all substance, who is filled only with greed and a desire to move up in the world by exploiting others.

"Tuck Everlasting" is truly an insightful and thought provoking film, and has potential to become as immortal as the book it is based on.